Viktor Hovland’s chase slowed down by strong winds, Saturday’s play suspended at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Victor Hovland is one of the top-ranked players playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am underway on the Monterey Peninsula. However, the tournament was suspended on Saturday and will now finish with the final round on Monday.
The gusty winds disturbed the match over the weekend and slowed Victor Hovland's shots, who opened the event with a 2-under 70 at Spyglass Hill.
He shot a 4-under 67 at Monterey Peninsula Country Club before being hampered by winds on Saturday, forcing the 2018 US Amateur champion to make a turn with a 2-under 34 at Pebble Beach, putting him four shots behind the leader.
Play has been suspended for the day.
The third round will resume at 8 a.m. on Sunday. twitter.com/pgatourcomms/s…
The first half of the tournament was successfully concluded, leaving the second half to be delayed by brutal winds.
The golfers dropped the ball around 3:12 p.m. at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, and soon the game was suspended on the Spyglass Hill Golf Course and Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Only professionals will compete in the final round and the cut rule will be reverted to the low 65 and ties competing in the final round.
At 4:04 PM ET, PGA Tour communications tweeted about the delay by 30 minutes before it was finally called for the day at 5:49 PM ET. The third round was scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, and the final round will take place on Monday.
It is pertinent to note that due to gusty conditions, only professionals will compete in the final round, which reverted to a low of 65.
"Nine was becoming a persistent problem"- PGA Officials talk about the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Championship issue
PGA Tour rules official Gary Young spoke about the course conditions and revealed that there were issues with the 9th hole as well. In his statement, as reported by Golf Digest, Young said:
"Nine was becoming a persistent problem, just given that the wind was much higher than originally forecasted earlier in the week. This is the difficulty of setting up for three rounds with everyone playing the same basic hole location for three rounds. We get the best information we can get. We did try to slow down the greens significantly. The last time these greens were mowed was yesterday morning.
He went on to say:
"We did try some mitigation matters. We did try to apply some water to the green just to create a little bit of friction. Just a light spritz of water on the green. Which is sometimes normal that we will do in hot conditions. But this was due to wind. So we were looking for anything we could do to try to keep a golf ball at rest. But we were getting some really hairy situations on that hole. We just did not want to continue play."
Update: Play will not resume at 2 p.m. PT.
Further updates to follow. twitter.com/PGATOURComms/s…
The match will resume on Sunday with the third round at 8:00 a.m., while the final will also take place on Sunday. However, rain is forecast for Sunday morning, and thus the game could be delayed further.
"We're going to have some things to fight through [Sunday]," said the PGA official, Mark Dusbabek in an interview with CBS.
If there are no further delays, the final round will begin at approximately 12:30 p.m. PT on Sunday and conclude on Monday. twitter.com/pgatourcomms/s…
If there are no delays, the final round will start on Sunday after the third round at 12:30 p.m. ET and continue until Monday.